So, whose idea at GF was it to create the forum?

A lot of that comes from interacting with the CEO and other staff, as well as a bunch of the early regulars on the forum.

The forum has kept me sold and still excited for this wonderful machine. Now if it was just laser time for the rest of us. I’m looking forward to this month’s update.

18 Likes

The 2K buy in has significantly raised the bar on the quality of questions, advice and ideas posted here. I’m also on the K40 Facebook forum. I assure you, this forum is way more interesting.

Of course, about every other post is someone asking about a broken, or misbehaving K40.

9 Likes

For me, since my buy in came later, it was the quality of the forum, including the interaction of @Dan and staff that gave me the confidence to jump, even as delays and the like were still being announced. I’ve personally never experience another online community quite like this one. If I got as far behind in any other forum I would shrug it off, but here I enjoy the interaction and the amount of shared knowledge that I can’t bare to miss anything.

8 Likes

Silent member of the community here. Reading the constant updates from the rest of you are the primary reason I have not cancelled my order, and I remain hopeful that the GF team will deliver a quality product.

20 Likes

I agree. Dan’s involvement is and has been almost daily - for coming up on two years. I remember counting back the ‘hours ago’ time stamp on posts and realized He is on the forum at 1:00 in the morning. Eventually he started showing up in daylight hours - which told me he had time to do that. The realization was a sign to me that the road was smoothing out, I found that reassuring… and nobody could say he didn’t give it his level best.

As I’m sure that holds true for the rest of the team. I noticed Rita was on the forum Sunday, that says a lot about commitment. Baily, Shell, Terrance, Tony and other staff are like the cherry on top when they pop in.

These guys are about to take the circus on the road again to the Maker Faire, That is an ordeal.
You PRU’s that are attending and exhibiting - You are also putting it out there, Good luck! and I know the company is proud to stand next to their customers at the same exhibition. I am envious.

10 Likes

I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how welcoming and encouraging the people on the forum are.

In the past I tried joining in on another forum for a book series I was reading. I asked a question. Instead of getting a decent reply, I was mocked and ridiculed because I didn’t know how to use the convoluted search function in there forum. It left a sour taste in my mouth so I avoided being involved in other forums. :confused:

When I posted my first topic here I got decent answers from everyone involved, and @dan took the time to answer as well. I was very impressed that the CEO took an interest in the community and would answer what ever questions he could. It has been an overall great experience!

To @jbpa and other silent members, you should get more involved if you can! We are a friendly lot and welcome additional company! :grin:

14 Likes

I am anxious to become more involved with the community here, and looking forward to having some projects to share in the future. But, I travel almost every week as a consultant, and I am three weeks away from completing my long-awaited Masters degree.

I find it somewhat amusing to myself that I had started getting into the maker community just about 2 years ago, building my own CNC router machine, teaching myself how to design and print things on a 3D printer, etc. But, life seems to have gotten in the way; between work, relocation for my wife’s job last fall, and school. I have been unable to even rebuild a workshop in my garage or continue with any of my maker activities. Soon though, and I will be back at it.

13 Likes

Access to Dan and staff really helped keep my, faith?, in GF. But getting to know lots of the people here and surrounded by all the smart people is just amazing.

Think I have said it before, but I used to think myself pretty smart until I came here and feel like a student again :wink:

12 Likes

Uhhh do you even internet bro? Hah.

I do, a lot, but not any kind of other maker forums…my other interests are…“eclectic and varied”.

Is this a standard thing for maker products?

3 Likes

I think that’s on the maker gene.
I used to think I had a ‘grass hopper’ mind, but I now suspect it goes with the same gene :wink:

7 Likes

I know what you mean. While in many other areas I’m one of the go-to-guys to figure something out, explain, teach others and then move on to the next challenge, here I’m “one of the crowd”. There are SO many folks here with amazing abilities, creativity, and above all a motivation to sharing their successes and failures with all of us. Bringing us along on their journey to making whatever we can imagine.

I have never been a part of a forum before. They’ve always felt stale, out-dated, and impersonal to me. But this group. We are different, weird, awesome, quirky, generous, and VERY intelligent. Thank you for making this place what it is today, thank you for the many off topics that occur in our quest to know something, figure something out, share something exciting.

12 Likes

First off, I’ll reiterate what others have said above. Love it here! Not exactly what I’m used to experiencing online.

While the “buy-in” is currently very appropriate, @dan, I wonder if in the future it might be a good idea to change this somehow. We’ll have a bunch of these machines in schools and maker spaces and what have you where many of the operators won’t have put in the money, but would benefit from and contribute greatly to this place. I don’t think there’s a huge need to do this in the very near future, but with an already established great forum culture it shouldn’t be too disruptive.

8 Likes

Yesss!! Seems most makers love so many different types of things…

And oh, I’m sorry, though, I wasn’t very clear when I wrote “Is this a standard thing for maker products?”; what I really meant was “is a forum a standard thing for maker products?”

2 Likes

kudos - that’s one of my fav TED talks!

[back to topic] - yes, this forum, its members, is truly amazing and inspiring. It’s restored my “faith” in humanity when I most needed that. I can’t thank all of you enough for your generosity and kindness. :glowforge: :relieved:

8 Likes

I used to write mods for Civilization IV. The forum there was similarly intellect driven and generous. No buy-in required, and we did get the occasional troll/disruption, but they often faded or adapted in short order. So I would venture that it is less about the buy-in, and more about collaboration and creation as a shared interest.

The nightmare was when I had no more time for modding and playing the game, so dropped from the community. That left a social void in my life, so I looked to pick up another forum community.

Oh. My. God. Being exposed to “normal internet” after that lovely life was a nightmare. So often I would be naive enough to post something about the vitriol, and the response was a universal “Welcome to the internet, that is just how things have to be here” and when I responded with “No, it doesn’t. It can be amazing” I would get laughed at.

So nice to have another proper community. Even if I know at some point I may have to move on and experience culture-shock once again.

20 Likes

Ha, yeah I would say most companies have forums, and the few that don’t certainly had the option and just didn’t click the box to turn them on. I mean, look at a page like reddit, it’s essentially a massive forum for the internet.

So, you’re a big fan of 4chan, huh?

:grin:

4 Likes

We have been thinking about that. We expect to have more than 5 non-owner users for every machine we sell. Fascinating question about how to have those folks join the community while preserving things that make the forum great. I might start a separate thread about that, in fact…

11 Likes

Please don’t create a Facebook group for support - from what I’ve seen, those are a mess.

6 Likes